EPL, England, Europe, Features, Ian John, Leagues, Regions POSTS

What they really meant…

Published by Ian John on February 10, 2010

Have you ever heard football people speak? It is a lesson in hidden meaning. Football stars, managers, chairmen even down to the humble fan are all guilty of this form of doublespeak, when the words they utter from their mouth’s actually try to hide their true feelings, but end up just showing them all the more. Here’s a few examples of what I mean from the past few weeks;

“Of all the managers I’ve dealt with he is the nicest. The question is ‘Is he too nice?’ Ossie Ardiles was the nicest guy you could meet but look what he did to Tottenham. Time will tell. Zola will prove himself over the next few games.” new West Ham boss David Sullivan endearing himself to his manager Gianfranco Zola. Now what this actually means is…
“Any more bad results and Mark Hughes will be coming in and we’ll pay him less too.”

Sir Alex Ferguson, speaking about winger Nani’s improved form stated “He’s shown maturity in the last three games and we’ve always felt that was the key with him” which translates as “Nani’ isn’t in the press every two minutes moaning about not being played, or telling the world I shout at everybody.”

Marouane Chamakh stated “My choice is to join a Premier League club and, if I could choose, I will go to Arsenal.” which as we all know means “Arsenal offered me a bigger contract than Liverpool…”

You see how it works? It’s quite entertaining to read through an article and pick out the quotations from it and then try and actually decipher what the real meaning behind the quotation is. It’s particularly good when a player or manager is commenting on a transfer rumour such as;

“I called him just to say hello and as we talked I joked with Seba, ‘If you want, you can come to play for [Manchester] City’, but I was only joking and he knew that. He plays for Estudiantes and is very happy there. It was never a possibility for us.” - Robert Mancini talking about his “attempt” to sign Juan Veron which equates to… “I offered him all the money in the known universe to come and play alongside Vieira in midfield, but he’d rather live in austerity in Buenos Aires than come back to England again.”

Then of course there are those who shun hiding their meaning behind veiled words and are masters of the back-handed compliment, such as Everton’s David Moyes who upon signing Philippe Senderos on loan from Arsenal will no doubt have inspired great confidence in the Swiss star by stating;

“Philippe was as good as we are going to get in our situation.”

Which does kind of make him sound like Dusty Bin from 3-2-1.

Then of course there are my favourites, where all pretence of good nature, politeness and affability is dismissed and the person just speaks their mind and gives us an insight into their crazy world.

“”Liverpool have The Beatles and Manchester have Oasis. I think Manchester has the better band.” – so said Cristiano Ronaldo who’s view on music you have to respect.

“”I don’t like John Terry and I never have. He’s got funny eyes and he’s a cry baby. He’s also a Cockney.” – so said Noel Gallagher and he knows a pathetic whining, freaky faced person when he sees one. He had one sing for his band for a while and still has the misfortune to count him as a brother.

Image Courtesy of ***Gime Some Truth*** on flickr.com

Readers Rating: